Delosperma

Shrubs, shrublets or perennial herbs, often with annual branches, decumbent or prostrate, rarely scrambling; stems sometimes reddish, with peeling bark when older; rootstock sometimes tuberous and lower roots sometimes with multiple small tubers. Leaves opposite, sessile, slightly connate or free, sometimes hairy or prickly, usually with visible bladder cell idioblasts, variable in shape from broadly triangular to cylindrical, mostly semiterete with a concave upper side, rarely flat; from bluish green to yellowish green or reddish, usually soft. Flowers solitary or in 3-flowered dichasial inflorescences; pedicels variable in length; bracts small or foliaceous. Sepals 5, unequal, sometimes horn- or tail-like. Petals in 1-4 whorls, linear, obtuse or emarginate, rarely hairy, white to pink or purple, rarely yellow, salmon, orange, rust-red, scarlet, carmine or wine-coloured. Stamens erect; staminodes usually arranged in a cone, whitish, sometimes hairy. Nectary of 5 separate glands, rarely united into a ring. Ovary slightly convex or concave on top; placentas parietal; stigmas (4)5(6), subulate or caudate, papillate. Fruit a (4)5(6)-locular capsule of Delosperma type; expanding keels parallel; valve wings +/- rectangular; covering membranes mostly 0; closing bodies 0. Seeds globose, pale brown, smooth to slightly textured. x = 9 (aneuploids, polyploidy). F lowering spring to summer, or sporadically. D istinguishing characters: creeping or shrubby perennials; leaves soft, glistening or hairy; fruit without covering membranes.